Joyous news for Harry Potter fans everywhere! The Harry Potter theme park-- AKA The Wizarding World of Harry Potter -- is set to open this spring. On Tuesday, Universal Studios unveiled details of the wizarding world, a 20-acre park in planning since May 2007. The theme park site explains that visitors can sip Butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks, buy Extendable Ears, eat "traditional British fare", and ride the "Flight of the Hippogriff"-- a "family coaster stimulating a Hippogriff training flight."
The New York Times has more information on the look and feel of the park:
The so-called "theme park within a theme park" will be faithful to the visual landscapes of the Harry Potter films produced by Warner Brothers, which licensed the rights to Universal after a flirtation with the Walt Disney Company. "We've tried to include something from every book," Alan Gilmore, an art director for the films who is helping to oversee the theme park designs, said in an interview.
"We had free range to be as grand and as excessive as we could be," he added. "It's only money that holds us back in the end."
A video posted to YouTube includes artist renderings of the new theme park and appears to be legitimate.